Archpriest Stephen Meholick was born in 1952 in Northwestern PA. As a young boy he served as apprentice to Cantor Peter Kennis who leaned Ruthenian (Carpatho-Rusyn) Plainchant at St. Nicholas Monastery in Mukechevo.

While attending Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA, he first met Bob Parent and eventually lived with Mitred Archpriest Vitaly Sahaidakovsky in Aliquippa, where he first studied “podobny” or special melodies as sung at the Pochaev Lavra in Volhynia. He was ordained deacon in 1975 at St Tikhon’s and assumed the position of seminary choir director and lecturer in liturgics and Church Slavonic. He received his Masters degree from Marywood College in Scranton.

In 1979 Archpriest Stephen was ordained to the priesthood and assigned to Cumberland, PI. While serving in New England he was appointed chairman of the Diocesan Music Commission and worked with longtime “cliros-mate”, His Grace, Archbishop Job. In 1993 he attended a summer seminar of liturgical music led by Archimandrite Matthew (Mormyl’) atthe Trinity-St.Sergius Lavra.

Archpriest Stephan is presently rector of St. Nicholas Church in San Anselmo, CA. He also serves as a consultant to the Department of Liturgical Music and Translations of the Orthodox Church in America and as a member of the PSALM advisory board, Fulfilling a lifelong ambition, in the summer of 2006, Father Stephan traveled to the Urals to observe and study with master-class bell ringers from Rostov, Archangelsk, Suzdal, Moscow and other regions of Russia. Since that time he has begun teaching rudiments of traditional bell-ringing in the San Francisco Bay Area Portland, OR and Sitka, AK.